What Is the Pickle Comparison?

My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to Mosiah 25-28 in a lesson titled “They Were Called the People of God.” The lesson was introduced with the following information:

After nearly three generations of living in separate lands, the Nephites were one people again. Limhi’s people, Alma’s people, and Mosiah’s people—even the people of Zarahemla, who were not descended from Nephi—were now all “numbered with the Nephites” (Mosiah 25:13). Many of them also wanted to become members of the Lord’s Church, as Alma’s people had. So all those who “were desirous to take upon them the name of Christ” were baptized, “and they were called the people of God” (Mosiah 25:23-24). After years of conflict and captivity, it seemed that the Nephites would finally enjoy a period of peace.

But before long, unbelievers began persecuting the Saints. What made this especially heartbreaking was that many of these unbelievers were the believers’ own children—the “rising generation” (Mosiah 26:1), including the sons of Mosiah and one son of Alma. The account tells of a miraculous visit of an angel. But the true miracle of this story is not just about angels appearing to wayward sons. Conversion is a miracle that, in one way or another, needs to happen in all of us.

The principle for this week is “I can change for the better through Jesus Christ” (Mosiah 27:8-37; 28:1-4). Alma the Younger described himself and his friends as “the very vilest of sinners” (Mosiah 28:4); therefore, they were all in need of a spiritual rebirth. That rebirth came after an angel of God appeared to Alma and the four sons of King Mosiah. Soon after his conversion, Alma the Younger testified that conversion is essential for everyone: “Marvel not that all mankind …  must be born again” (Mosiah 27:25; emphasis added). 

Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the process of being born again to the process of turning cucumbers into pickles. 

A pickle is a cucumber that has been transformed according to a specific recipe and series of steps. The first steps in the process of changing a cucumber into a pickle are preparing and cleaning….

The next steps in this process of change are immersing and saturating the cucumbers in salt brine for an extended period of time….

The final step in the process requires the sealing of the cured pickles in jars that have been sterilized and purified….

To summarize, a cucumber becomes a pickle as it is prepared and cleaned, immersed in and saturated with salt brine, and sealed in a sterilized container. This procedure requires time and cannot be hurried, and none of the essential steps can be ignored or avoided….

Just as a cucumber must be prepared and cleaned before it can be changed into a pickle, so you and I can be prepared with “words of faith and of good doctrine”

(1 Timothy 4:6) and initially cleansed through the ordinances and covenants administered by the authority of the Aaronic Priesthood….

Proper preparing and cleaning are the first basic steps in the process of being born again….

Just as a cucumber is transformed into a pickle as it is immersed in and saturated with salt brine, so you and I are born again as we are absorbed by and in the gospel of Jesus Christ. As we honor and “observe the covenants (D&C 42:13) into which we have entered, as we “feast upon the words of Christ” (2 Nephi 32:3), as we “pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart” (Moroni 7:48), and as we “serve [God] with all [of our] heart, might, mind and strength” (D&C 4:2), then:

“Because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters” (Mosiah 5:7).

The spiritual rebirth described in this verse typically does not occur quickly or all at once; it is an ongoing process – not a single event. Line upon line and precept upon precept, gradually and almost imperceptibly, our motives, our thoughts, our words, and our deeds become aligned with the will of God. This phase of the transformation process requires time, persistence, and patience.

A cucumber only becomes a pickle through stead, sustained, and complete immersion in salt brine. Significantly, salt is the key ingredient in the recipe. Salt frequently is used in the scriptures as a symbol both of a covenant and of a covenant people. And just as salt is essential in transforming a cucumber into a pickle, so covenants are central to our spiritual rebirth.

We begin the process of being born again through exercising faith in Christ, repenting of our sins, and being baptized by immersion for the remission of sins by one having priesthood authority….

And after we come out of the waters of baptism, our souls need to be continuously immersed in and saturated with the truth and the light of the Savior’s gospel. Sporadic and shallow dipping in the doctrine of Christ and partial participation in His restored Church cannot produce the spiritual transformation that enables us to walk in a newness of life. Rather, fidelity to covenants, constancy of commitment, and offering our whole souls unto God are required if we are to receive the blessings of eternity….

Total immersion in and saturation with the Savior’s gospel are essential steps in the process of being born again….

Cured cucumbers are packed into sterilized jars and heat processed in order to remove impurities and to seal the containers from external contaminants…. In a similar way, we progressively become purified and sanctified as you and I are washed in the blood of the Lamb, are born again, and receive the ordinances and honor the covenants that are administered by the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood….

The word sealing in my message today does not refer exclusively to the ordinance of eternal marriage performed in the house of the Lord….

The Holy Spirit of Promise is the ratifying power of the Holy Ghost. When sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise, an ordinance, vow, or covenant is binding on earth and in heaven. (See D&C 132:7.) Receiving this “stamp of approval” from the Holy Ghost is the result of faithfulness, integrity, and steadfastness in honoring gospel covenants “in [the] process of time” (Moses 7:21). However, this sealing can be forfeited through unrighteousness and transgression.

Purifying and sealing by the Holy Spirit of Promise constitute the culminating steps in the process of being born again.